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A 28-year-old man accused of raping two area high school students in his Isla Vista home appeared in court Monday. Deon Kitt pleaded not guilty in April to rape by intoxication or fear, unlawful oral copulation, and rape of an intoxicated or drugged victim. A native of Canada and a former Santa Barbara City College student, Kitt was arrested April 2 after an investigation by Isla Vista Foot Patrol deputies. The case will likely go to trial later this summer.

Prosecutor Ben Ladinig says Kitt raped two women — one 17 years old and the other 18 — on a Saturday night in March in his Del Playa Drive residence. The first female was intoxicated and the second was “unconscious or asleep,” the complaint alleges. Additional counts claim Kitt committed rape and forced oral copulation against the same 18-year-old on two other occasions a month earlier.

Many details remained unclear after Monday’s hearing, which was held this week because the witness who testified — Kitt’s former roommate — is about to leave the country. On Monday, both Ladinig and public defender Christine Voss posed several questions.

Going first, Ladinig asked Kitt’s roommate if one of the victims appeared to be drunk earlier in the evening in the kitchen. The witness replied, “I don’t know,” a phrase he repeated countless times during his two-hour testimony. But Ladinig contended that the witness had told detectives that the girl appeared to be drunk earlier that night.

Ladinig presented two subpoenaed cellphone videos that the witness captured on the night of one of the incidents. Both video clips captured bedroom scenes and were very dark. In one video, a woman murmured “stop” several times followed by “please stop it” and “I don’t care.” Kitt was fully clothed and the context surrounding the video remains unclear. The witness testified that the woman had appeared to be hitting and slapping Kitt.

Later during cross-examination, Voss argued that the victim was half-asleep and was objecting to Kitt because he told her to get out of his bed. “When you were videoing this, you didn’t think you were videotaping a rape, right?” Voss asked. The witness said no, and answered a subsequent question that he would have intervened had he thought Kitt was engaging in sexual activity while the woman was telling him to stop.

A second video was taken about an hour later and depicts a woman urinating on herself. During Ladinig’s questions, the witness testified that the woman in the video was wearing just a shirt and had her underwear pulled down to her ankles. Kitt also has his pants off. “And the reason why you made this second video was why?” Ladinig asked the witness, who said that he had never seen anyone urinate on themselves from drinking too much.

“At this time did you think she was really drunk?” asked Ladinig. “Yes,” the witness responded. “Were you concerned that she may be drugged?” Ladinig asked. “Yes,” the witness repeated. The witness also testified that Kitt had told him that he was 24 years old but that he found out Kitt was actually 28 years old after he heard about the court case on the news.

After that, Ladinig brought up conversations Kitt and the witness had about “room rules.” The witness said that Kitt had sent him a text message asking the witness not to have his girlfriend sleep over every night of the week so that he could “fuck girls on the weekend or try to.” The witness also testified that he received text message that read: “can at least give me the weekend to find hoes on DP.”

During the next hour, Voss established the witnesses was aware of “text exchanges” between Kitt and the second alleged victim for a period of time up until Kitt was arrested.

Voss also asked the witness several questions about what he originally told the police. Voss argued the witness told police the girl was okay with the sex and that he had heard moaning from both parties. She further pressed the witness if he was telling the truth when he spoke to the police.

“At the time it was the truth, but now that I’ve had more time to think about it, I’m not 100 percent sure,” the witness responded.

Voss also touched on the issue of age. After some back and forth, the witness testified that he was under the impression that the girls were UCSB students because Kitt had told him he saw them at the library on campus.

Kitt has remained in custody. If convicted, he would have to register as a sex offender and could face up to 20 years in prison.

Loonpt, what's the relevancy of whether or not they ever had consensual sex? If they did, does that mean that he could not have raped her? Does providing consent once mean that he has complete access to her body from this point forward? Of course not! You're question and the implication behind it are ridiculous.

A husband can rape his wife, no doubt, but my QUESTION was why an 18 year old girl who chose to spend time in a community with tens of thousands of other people her age chose to hang out with somebody who had raped her a month earlier. Simple question. It doesn't mean he didn't rape them that night.

Loonpt, perhaps because she didn't realize it was rape at the time? Or that she was inexperienced, or had a messed up idea of relationships and what sex should be like? Often people who have a pattern of abuse in their background genuinely think that rape is what sex is. If that's all they've ever known, it's understandable that they would not recognize what was actually happening to them.

I'm not saying that's the case here, I have no idea. My point is that there are myriad reasons why someone would have repeated contact with their rapist.

Asking why just seems to blame her for what happened, even if that's not what you mean to do. A better question than why did the victim "put herself in harm's way" might be "why did this man rape her?"

Leave it to loonywoony to come to the defense of the scumbags. That's his typical MO.Loony, nobody has to put words in your mouth for you to sound like a pro-scumbum idiot, you put those words there yourself & do a great job of it.

KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK! Now go chase those chemtrails you silly truther, the conspiracies await.

I haven't defended any of his actions - in fact I don't even know what his actions were yet. And neither does anybody else who has merely read this article since all we have is some descriptions of grainy video, descriptions of potentially consensual sex, descriptions of what may or may not have been an attempt and may or may not have lead to actual non-consensual sex. All I did was ask a question. Native1 responded with one possible and plausible scenario. So what if this girl has never been abused and had largely normal relationships her whole life? Are the girls pushing for the charges against him or is it the prosecution?

There is very little real information to go on here which is why I asked what I thought was the most obvious question that stood out.

What lead to the prosecution to begin with? Was the guy who took the video arrested for weed possession the next day and was his phone confiscated and pried into and did that lead to this investigation? Did the girls make the complaint? Is there any reason they may be trying to get back at him for anything? It wouldn't be the first time nor would it be the last. Of course, if he did rape them then that certainly wouldn't be a first for IV either, I'm not against putting him in prison for rape if that's what he did but there should be some proof for that or at least witness testimony. The Prosecution pressing charges and showing grainy video and a roommate description of not knowing what was going on when he was sitting right there is not proof and since the trend in society is to throw every guy who is even accused of rape under the bus, I choose at least on occasion where I see fit to take the other side on the principle of fairness, I have no desire to keep rapists out on the street putting more women in harms way.

i mean im with him on most things except the second iv shooter. that was just out there lol. but indeed a good laugh

it does seem that the trend in most of the news is that every comment has this knee jerk reaction to quickly throw the accuser under the bus and its refreshing to see some patience in the details from people like loony.

the infomation provided so far doesn't really sway in any direction. its laughable that the texts were of substance or his age. i didn't know it was illegal to lie about someone's age. or its illegal to want to f the iv hoes. every guy in iv texts that to his friend. i bet those girls lied about their age as well. venturing into a college neighborhood at night and drinking definitely passes them off as any other college girl. it it interesting that the girl is still hanging out with the guy even after supposedly being raped before.

Loon's complete lack of self-awareness is awe inspiring. "I don't know what happened," "I was only asking a simple question!" Then he just can't stop himself from immediately continuing with more "questions" and scenarios that further spell out what we knew all along--his first reaction to any rape charge is to question the accuser, not the accused. He does throw in a few "rapists should be punished," lines but like most men and the legal system since the beginning of time, the accuser is always on trial, and the myth of rampant false accusations is always trotted out. And no, the trend in society right now isn't to throw the accused under the bus; in fact, today we have more conservative types claiming some mythic preponderance of false accusations. If Loon looked around at media other than conspiracy and persecution minded sources he might see what the wider discourse now contains: the ridiculous narrative of the persecuted hetero white male has seeped from fringey loser websites into the mainstream.

Everyone who ever reads Indy comments knows what Loon will say before he says it, and it's beyond tiresome. So Loon: why do you bother? Time to go somewhere else where no one knows your brand of ignorance and prejudice. And after 2 or 3 posts when they do know, then move on to next one. Rinse, repeat. Or just stay on your "men's rights" and other wingnut sites where you'll be taken seriously. Wouldn't that feel better? Somewhere where you won't be persecuted and victimized for talking about persecution and victimization of actually privileged groups?

Everyone else: Who will join me in never responding to this guy again, no matter how tempting it is to call him out? In fact, it might be nice to ignore all the usual commenters here who respond to every news item by working it into their pre-existing views/agendas. We know who they are.

I was trying hard to remember the last time a white male was tried for sexual assault in or involving IV. Slava Olsen was convicted for killing Brad Jones, but that was merely assault, and not sexual. Thor Christiansen somehow slipped through, although local law enforcement caught him with a matching firearm.

Maybe only non-whites commit rape in IV. Or maybe in memory of Lefty Bryant, Dalton Nezey, and Leroy Delaine, law enforcement treats non-whites to especially thorough enforcement of the law.

Loonpt is raising, in his awkward and mildly offensive way, the possibility that Kitt should be presumed innocent. If you are offended you have a thin skin.

But of course Hershel Greenspan is right. Although Eric Frimpong joined the ranks of those treated to specially scrupulous law enforcement for the non-white in Santa Barbara County, Mr. Kitt might not be n+1 in the long count

And it is also true that one drop of alcohol or one hit of a joint renders everyone incapable of legal consent to a sexual act. Eric Frimpong found out. It is all assault after that. The only question is who gets prosecuted and who does not.

Now you're making sense, Pardall. Racial bias in the justice system is a huge problem and I think you're right to point out this pattern in IV. Of course he's innocent until proven guilty. And if you're not white, you are often innocent and not proven but just pronounced guilty

It's a free country and people can live where they like, but UCSB should close the SBCC back door. When SBCC used to be for local students it made sense to allow a path to UCSB admission. But now that SBCC is for out of state students, it does no good for UCSB or the community to give SBCC an admission back door.

Remember boys and girls, SBCC absolutely REFUSES to take any responsible actions against ANY of their law breaking student body.Hey, a buck's a buck and you gotta make those somehow, what better way than to bring in the a-holes, charge them top dollar for an "education" (loose term there), dump them all in IV and allow them to continue their student status even if they commit serious crimes?